The transcriptional activities and cellular localization of the human estrogen receptor alpha are affected by the synonymous Ala87 mutation.
Until recently, synonymous mutations (which do not change amino acids) have been much neglected. Some evidence suggests that this kind of mutations could affect mRNA secondary structure or stability, translation kinetics and protein structure. To explore deeper the role of synonymous mutations, we studied their consequence on the functional activity of the estrogen receptor alpha (ERα). The ERα is